A Critical Edition of 'Umdat Al-N?zir 'al? Al-Ashb?h Wa'l-Na?? 'ir

This book presents a critical edition of the twelfth/eighteenth century ah/ce manuscript on the subject of legal maxims ?Umdat al-N?zir ?al? al-Ashb?h wa'l-Na???ir. It was composed by the distinguished ?anifite jurist Ab? 'l-Su??d al-?usayn? and is a commentary on an earlier seminal text Al-Ashb?h wa'l-Na???ir', authored by Ibn Nujaym in the tenth/sixteenth century.The volume is divided into three main parts, the first of which provides an historical and theoretical introduction to the...
More Description

This book presents a critical edition of the twelfth/eighteenth century ah/ce manuscript on the subject of legal maxims ?Umdat al-N?zir ?al? al-Ashb?h wa'l-Na???ir. It was composed by the distinguished ?anifite jurist Ab? 'l-Su??d al-?usayn? and is a commentary on an earlier seminal text Al-Ashb?h wa'l-Na???ir', authored by Ibn Nujaym in the tenth/sixteenth century.The volume is divided into three main parts, the first of which provides an historical and theoretical introduction to the genre of al-qaw??id al-fiqhiyyah (legal maxims). The second part introduces the two texts and their authors, discusses their literary legacy within the ?anaf? School of law and covers issues of editing, authenticity and provenance. Finally, the third part of the book consists of seven edited chapters of the ?Umdat al-N?zir ?al? al-Ashb?h wa'l-Na???ir. The first of these is the author's introduction to his work followed by one for each of the first six qaw??id.The work is important as a commentary on one of the most significant legal texts which revived interest in the subject within the ?anaf? School of law after five centuries of stagnation. It is also the most copious of all the forty-four commentaries on Ibn Nujaym's book and it is a combination of the commentaries of at least three well known ?anafite scholars. Because Ab?'l-Su??d synthesises the most authoritative opinions from these commentaries, ?Umdat al-N??ir serves as a definitive summation of the discourse on legal maxims within the school.